“Cynicism rolls down like the water and mistrust like a mighty stream”.
Antisthenes (c. 445 – 365 B.C.), Diogenes of Sinopes (c. 412 – 323 B.C.) and Crates of Thebes (c. 365 – 285 B.C.) are considered the founders of the school of Cynicism.
For a Cynic, the purpose of life was to live virtuously and in agreement with nature. Living such a life meant having the bare necessities for existence and rejecting all the need for wealth, power and fame. One’s life was free from all possessions and property.
The word “Cynic” comes form the greek word κυνικός, kynikos, “dog-like” and that from κύων, kyôn, “dog. They Cynics may have gotten the name form the fact that Antisthenes taught at the Cynosarges (Place of the white dog) school in Athens. Later the Cynics embraced the term. They saw themselves as dogs. Like dogs they were indifferent to how they lived, shameless in their modesty, good guards of their philosophy and discriminating between friend and foe. To quote Diogenes, “Like a dog, I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.”
No one epitomized the life of a Cynic more than Diogenes. He rejected the chains of civilization by eating in the street, masturbating in the marketplace, urinating on those who insulted him, defecating in the theatre, pointing at people with his middle finger and living outside in a clay wine jar.
He was also known to walk around in broad daylight with a lamp. When asked why, he responded, “I am just looking for an honest man”.
How true!
In this election season, isn’t that what we are all looking for? Can we find an honest man or woman? Someone’s whose honesty is visible in broad daylight, enhanced with a lamp? Someone indifferent to the trappings of wealth and power, shameless in how they fight for the common man, good guards of the trust bestowed on them and discriminating between right and wrong? Is there anyone out there like that?
Somewhere in the 19th century, Cynics evolved. They dropped the ascetic lifestyle and replaced it with distrust. A disbelief in the goodness and motives of men.
So as we as a people wander the streets in broad daylight like Diogenes looking for honest men and women to lead us, the dearth of such individuals gives us pause. Those we find, those who have fought their way to the top leave us with a feeling of disgust and disbelief in their actions and words.
In the process we think these leaders are motivated purely by self-interest, greed and power. We feel helpless and like dogs “…fawn on those who give us anything, yelp at those who refuse, and set our teeth in rascals.”
How cynical!